I have now started my summer break from school so I will also be taking a break from the daily postings on Teaching News.

There will still be occasional updates over the next few weeks, but regular posts will not resume until September.

Have a wonderful summer break!

Mark

Image – Some Day My Prints Will Come

Here are links to some of the most popular Teaching Ideas, News, Videos and Photos on my websites recently:

• World Cup Ideas and Resources – A large collection of lesson ideas, videos, display material and other resources, to support the use of the World Cup in the classroom.
• Creative Writing – A collection of starting points for creative writing.
• The 100 Square – Use the 100 square to find patterns by colouring in certain squares.
• How many squares on a chessboard? – An enjoyable Maths investigation, which requires logical thinking in order to find the correct answer.
• Ordering the Planets – Can you remember the correct order of the planets? Use these handy tricks to help you!

• Blank Top Trumps Cards – Free resources to help you create your own Top Trumps cards in the classroom.
• Classroom Displays – Discover a site to inspire your own classroom displays.
• iPhone and iPod apps for schools – A collection of applications to use in your lessons.
• Mr. Thorne’s Phonics Videos – Look at these wonderful educational phonics videos for young children.
• Myst Ideas and Resources – An announcement about the release of lots of ideas to support the use of the Myst games in the classroom.

• South African World Cup 2010 – A video made by the South African people when they won the World Cup 2010 Bid.
• Wavin’ Flag – The official theme song for the FIFA World Cup South Africa 2010, by the somalian artist K’naan.
• Fifa World Cup Soccer City – Find out about Soccer City, the venue that will take centre stage during the World Cup finals in South Africa.
• Persuasive Advert KS2 – A persuasive advert which can be used as part of Literacy lessons in KS2.
• The Highwayman – Watch an animated version of the popular poem.

• Designing Games – A display showing children’s ICT work as part of a topic about the creation of computer games.
• Adjectives and Adverbs – Sharing children’s suggestions of adjectives and adverbs, created using WordArt and clipart.
• 3D Shapes – A selection of 3D shapes, made by pupils, along with questions to review their understanding.
• Reading Chart – A chart on which the children move their names, to show how many times they have read at home.
• Colour Mixing – What happens when you mix different colours? Find out in this colourful display!

Here are links to some of the most popular Teaching Ideas, News, Videos and Photos on my websites recently:

• Limericks – Learn about limericks! Contains lots of examples and suggested activities.
• Prime Numbers – A clear set of instructions to help you identify prime numbers.
• Number Square Patterns – A set of resource sheets and activities which children can use to identify patterns on a 1-100 number square.
• Shapes – Five popular worksheets to help children learn about 2D shapes.
• World Cup Teaching Resources – A huge collection of ideas, resources, display material, videos and links to help you use the World Cup in your teaching.

• New Primary Curriculum Online – Three months after being published, the site now states that ‘the content on this site may not reflect current Government policy.’
• BBC Learning Zone Class Clips – Information about the BBC’s Broadband Class Clips which you can use in your classrooms.
• Communication 4 All – Linking to a wonderful resource site from Bev Evans.
• Functional Skills – An article which explains about the new functional skills qualifications.
• ICT Games – A guide to some of the wonderful games and resources on James Barrett’s fantastic site.

• Persuasive Advert (KS2) – A persuasive advert for KS2 which was created for an interview observed lesson but can now be used by other teachers too.
• The Highwayman – An animated version of the poem ‘The Highwayman’ by Alfred Noyes.
• Phonics Song – A phonics song to help children learn the letter sounds.
• Rocks and Soils Song – A useful video to help children find out about different types of rocks and soil.
• The Battle of Marathon – Part 1 of a historical documentary from the History Channel about the Athenian’s legendary victory over the Persians.

• Bones – A wonderful display giving information about the skeleton and bones found within the body.
• Jack and the Beanstalk – A fantastic role play area, for early years classrooms, based on the story of Jack and the Beanstalk.
• Colour Mixing – What happens when you mix different colours? Find out in this colourful display!
• Adjectives and Adverbs – Children thought of a huge selection of adjectives and adverbs and used WordArt to make colourful versions of their words for this display.
• Healthy Schools – A display which celebrates a school’s Healthy Schools Award.

I will be taking a break from posting on Teaching News for a few weeks over the Easter period. Regular posts will resume on Monday 19th April.

I hope that you have a wonderful Easter.

Mark

Picture created by Grzegorz Łobiński for EcardSphere.com.

Here are links to some of the most popular Teaching News articles over the past few months, in case you have missed any of them:

• Communication 4 All – Have you visited this wonderful resource site?
• Safer Internet Day – Lots of links and advice for teaching your pupils about staying safe online.
• Anithings Offer – A special offer (which has now ended) offering visitors to Teaching News a discount and free gift for purchases of this fantastic animation software.
• Creative Curriculum – Information and links about creative curriculum ideas.
• Ryan’s Thinkers Keys – Download a set of activities that children can take part in at the start of the day, or as part of other lessons.
• New Primary Curriculum Online – Find out all about the new primary curriculum and how to find it online.
• Planbee and Twinkl – Have you seen these new teaching resource sites?
• Spelling Resources – A selection of links and resources to support the teaching of spelling in your classroom.
• Primary Teacher Resource Centre – Take part in this active forum for primary school teachers.
• KS2 Spelling Lists – Download some useful lists of spelling words.

I’m really pleased to announce a new iPhone application for teachers. The app is called TeachingUK and it’s available in the App store now! The application is a really easy way for teachers to find the latest news (from this Teaching News blog) as well as the most recent additions to Teaching Ideas.

You can also browse the Teaching News and Teaching Ideas sites within the app if you want to see the content in more detail:

The app also allows you to browse the most recent tweets from the @TeachingIdeas Twitter account (which now has over 2,000 followers). To install the app, just visit http://bit.ly/teachinguk or search for TeachingUK in the App Store.

I am planning a future post about other useful iPhone applications for teachers. If you use any great education apps on your iPhone / iPod Touch, please get in touch by email or by leaving a comment below. Thanks.

This will be the last post on Teaching News for 2009 as I am taking a break from posting over the Christmas holidays.

I hope that you have an enjoyable break and a fantastic 2010!

Mark

Image – Pencil Crayon Tree

Here are links to the most popular ‘Teaching News‘ posts for November 2009 in case you missed some of them the first time around:

1. Fireworks – Ideas and links to help celebrate Fireworks night.
2. Remembrance Sunday – Useful links for activities related to Remembrance Sunday
3. Competition – Win DK Books – This competition has now closed. The winner will be announced shortly!
4. Blank Top Trumps – Unfortunately, these Top Trumps files are no longer available on the site. I’ve contacted the creator but he no longer has copies either. If you have a copy of the file, please email me and I’ll upload them so that others can use them too. They’re obviously very popular!
5. Communication 4 All – Have you explored this wonderful site yet?
6. Competition – Where do you like to learn? – Did you enter Dell’s competition to win a tablet PC / netbook?
7. Creative Curriculum – Information and links about creative curriculum ideas.
8. Fruit and Vegetable Colouring Pictures – A set of free downloadable resources for work related to food / healthy eating / plants.
9. Numeracy Helper – A useful site with free Numeracy resources.
10. Skoolio – PSHE and Classroom Powerpoints – Have you downloaded any of these fantastic Powerpoint presentations yet?

Here are links to the most popular ‘Teaching News‘ posts for October 2009. Which ones were most useful for you?

1. Top 10 Teaching Ideas (Sep ’09) – A list of the most popular ideas on Teaching Ideas.
2. Free Stuff for Teachers – A fantastic site with free resources for teachers to use.
3. Superclubs Plus Free Trial – Sign up to Superclubs with our offer, now extended until 30th November 2009.
4. 100 Best Open Source Apps for Education – How many of these apps do you use?
5. Communication for All – Download lots of top quality resources on this great site.
6. The Potato Story – A wonderful site to support work in Science lessons.
7. New Ideas to Inspire – Have you discovered the new presentations on Ideas to Inspire?
8. Staying Organised – How do you manage all of the jobs that teachers have to do?
9. The Art Classroom – Visit this wonderful blog and discover lots of art ideas and student work.
10. Cool Tools for Schools – An amazing directory of tools that schools can take advantage of.

It is now almost two months since I set up Teaching News, taking over all of Andrew Ross’ wonderful Primary Teacher UK blog posts, and trying to continue his work here. As this site is still relatively new, I have set up a survey to find out what you think of the site. I would be very grateful if you could spend a few minutes completing the 10 short questions below. Your feedback will be very helpful to me as I continue to work on the site in the future. Thank you.